Use Of Firearms In Violent Crime On Rise - Study

July 10, 1995|Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - — An estimated 1.3 million Americans were victims of gun-related crimes in 1993, the Justice Department reported on Sunday, and while the handgun was the most commonly used weapon among criminals of all ages, assault weapons were often the firearm of choice among juveniles.

The data was part of a survey by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, which studied the use of guns in crimes during 1993, the most recent year for which information was available.

According to the department, guns were used in 29 percent of the 4.4 million murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults committed in the United States in 1993 - an 11 percent increase over the previous year. Handguns, rather than rifles or assault weapons, were used in 86 percent of the firearm-related crimes.

The new data is being released as the issue of crime in the United States is about to return to the political debate. The figures also stand in contrast to statistics showing a sharp decline in recent months in violent crimes in New York City, which has long been a bellwether for crime in America.

Anti-terrorism measures, fueled by the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, are on the congressional agenda, while the Republican majority in Congress is contemplating reductions in money for President Clinton's anti-crime bill.

Advocates of strict gun control laws fear that renewed debate in Congress will give their opponents a chance to relax limits on firearms. The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled on Tuesday to consider a measure restoring felons' rights to carry firearms.

The Justice Department study "has provided more conclusive evidence demonstrating the need to keep the Brady law and the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons intact," said Sarah Brady, chairwoman of a lobbying group known as Handgun Control Inc.

Brady said the study "verifies the epidemic of gun violence sweeping across our nation."

The Brady law imposes a waiting period before handguns can be purchased. It is named after James Brady, the White House press secretary who was shot in the head during the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981. He remains disabled from the attack.

The proposal to allow convicted felons to own firearms and to eliminate the 1994 federal ban on 19 assault weapons - such as semiautomatic pistols or rifles - is opposed by Clinton and supported by the National Rifle Association. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reported that 2.6 percent of the ex-convicts granted the right to own such weapons have been re-arrested.

In a segment devoted to young criminals and weapons, the Justice Department reported that a 1991 survey of young prison inmates in four states showed that just before they were confined, 58 percent owned a revolver, usually a large-caliber gun; 55 percent owned a semiautomatic handgun; 51 percent owned a sawed-off shotgun; and 35 percent owned a military-style automatic or semiautomatic rifle.

And, it said, a study of adults and juveniles by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services determined that young people were more than twice as likely as adults to have carried a semiautomatic pistol at a crime scene.